I’m taking it in the chops from some Green Party members for not supporting Jill Stein for president. It’s nothing new for me. I’ve tried to discourage Green Party runs for president for a long time, feeling that, in most cases, building from the bottom up is the most useful thing a third party can do and—absent fusion politics or ranked-choice voting—there is little to come of a presidential run other than a lot distraction from more meaningful efforts.

My third party experience goes back four decades. I was one of the founders of the DC Statehood Party, which won representation on the city’s council and/or school board for many years. I was also involved in getting the national Green Party off the ground...

...In fact, the only important matter on which I would split from the Greens was presidential runs. These struck me as a waste of time, money, and, except in special cases, an invitation for the powerful to blame Greens for the Democrats’ problems—as they did, misleadingly, with Nader in 2000. There was a century’s history of third-party failure to back up their accusations....

...The Greens have been showing this same top-down bias, to their own disadvantage. It is, among other things, ahistorical, as the bulk of serious positive change—such as with abolition, the environment, marijuana, and gay rights—starts at the bottom and works its way up....

...I’m conscious of the huge difference between treating politics as a tool as opposed to treating it as an ideology, theology, or certification of one’s own virtue. Campaigns are a tactic, like protests and boycotts, and the trick is to use them wisely...

Which is why I am voting for the Democratic candidate for president...because that seems the best way to save the Supreme Court, the Senate, social programs such as Social Security, and other pieces of our democracy. I’m choosing a battlefield over pointless proof of my own virtue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_(U.S._magazine)YES! Magazine is a non-profit, ad-free magazine that covers topics of social justice, environmental sustainability, alternative economics, and peace...

...YES! Magazine features community-based solutions and "supports people's active engagement in creating a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world"....